


More Than Anything

by starsandwristrockets



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Bi-Curiosity, Bisexual Mike Wheeler, Boys In Love, Coming Out, Coming of Age, Confusion, Falling In Love, Friendship/Love, Gay Panic, Gay Pride, Gay Will Byers, Headcanon, LGBTQ Character, LGBTQ Themes, Light Angst, M/M, Minor Eleven | Jane Hopper/Mike Wheeler, Minor Original Character(s), Multi, New York City, Teen Romance, Will Byers/Mike Wheeler in Love, boys who are bad with feelings, byler
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-08-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24513895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starsandwristrockets/pseuds/starsandwristrockets
Summary: Love stories aren’t made for boys like Will Byers. Not then and certainly not now. Then, he’d been proved foolish time after time to think they could be. Now, he’s learning to be okay with it all. He has a full scholarship and a fresh start in New York City to thank for that; a place where no one knows what he has not told them. A place where the last thing he’d expect, or even really want, is for Mike Wheeler to accidentally stroll back into his life, but happenstance has its ways.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), Will Byers/Mike Wheeler
Comments: 11
Kudos: 46





	1. NOW

_NOW_  
_New York City, New York_  
_November 1989_

Love stories aren't made for boys like Will Byers. Only the comics he scribbles hastily across restaurant napkins, or the backs of drugstore receipts, or on the sides of hot coffee sleeves before they're all promptly discarded are the exceptions. And God knows he'll never turn on the radio, slip in one of his brother's mixtapes, or stumble across a record's bonus track and hear the deepest desires of his heart have, for once, been put into words, strung to a melody, and sung back to him.

Love stories aren't made for boys like Will, and he is learning to be okay with it. Besides, there is so much more to love than stupid boys. Like the smell of old vinyl, the first sip of coffee in the morning, and how city lights dance on rain-soaked pavement. The bravado of his brother's voice, and how his mother's nose wrinkles when she laughs, and the way his sister silently places her hand over his when she knows they are thinking the exact same thing.

God, he misses them, but West Virginia never quite felt like home, and Manhattan offers a clean slate. Here, no one knows what he hasn't told them. He doesn't have to be Nerd, or Fairy, or Zombie Boy. He's just Will. The run-of-the-mill college student. The part-time sales associate at Liberation Records. Another face hidden in the crowd.

And certainly, he would never expect to be found in that crowd. Not on a day like today when the only thing on his mind as he punches out of work is the week's pile of homework waiting on his dorm room desk. When the highlight of his afternoon was a customer complimenting his music taste. When all he had to look forward to was the five o'clock shift change when Jesse would come in to take over and exchange with him his week's new mixtape, the only thing from preventing Will's bike ride back to his dorm from being a complete nonevent.

"Just give track six a chance, okay?" Jesse asks as he counts dimes from the cash drawer.

Will chuckles and slides the tape into his walkman. "Alright."

"Do we have any more quarters?" _Quarters._ Will likes the way he says it. The way Jesse stresses and shapes different vowels. As much as Will sinks into the crowd, Jesse embodies it. The convex slope of his nose, the dark stubble across his jaw, and the instantaneous bond he forms with absolutely anyone else originating from Staten Island prove it so.

"In the safe."

"Mind sticking around two seconds?" he asks. To watch the register, he means.

"Sure."

Jesse disappears into the back office and Will pulls on his headphones, leans against the counter, and presses play on his Walkman. The tape opens with a few distinct chords by Dead Kennedys, which Will promptly skips over into a track by Boston.

As the drumbeat picks up, a girl trails in with a gust of autumn breeze. Pretty, certainly, with her button nose and low bun of white blond-hair, but preppy. Complete with dark brown oxfords and an argyle cardigan to prove it. The type of girl that isn't typically drawn into Liberation Records, or even these few blocks of Manhattan.

She doesn't even seem to take notice of him, distracting herself instead by shuffling through the discography of The Beatles. Knowing he's no longer on the clock but itching to idle time, Will busies himself straightening the vinyl cleaning kits behind the register. Distracts himself so thoroughly, without intending to, that with the guitar riff ringing in his ears, he doesn't notice the door chime open again. Doesn't notice anyone else is there in the store until he hears his name called over the music.

And when he pulls down his headphones and turns, certainly Will Byers doesn't expect, or necessarily even want, _him—_ with his serious face and familiar mop of dark hair—to stroll right back into Will's life merely minutes after he was supposed to be on his way home for the day, but happenstance has its ways.

He looks different, but not really, standing there before the register. The same, but grown into his limbs, his strong features, but evidently never out of the patterned sweaters and khaki pants, or the way his hands fumble at his sides when he's not sure what he's supposed to do with them. And those eyes Will had memorized lifetimes ago, that first day on the playground. They look at him round, like a deer caught in headlights. Like he's is just as shocked to find Will standing before him.

"Mike." The name holds more weight in Will's mouth than he would have liked it to. "Oh, my God. What are you doing here?"

"I go to Columbia." He jerks his thumb in the university's general direction in an easy way, as if he wanders this direction all the time."What are _you_ doing here?"

Will gestures lamely to the counter between them. "I work here."

"Right. Small world." He smirks at the ground, and his shoulders begin to relax. "How are you? I haven't seen you since…"

"Forever," Will finishes.

Mike nods. "Yeah. Forever." Then, before silence settles a touch too long, "I heard Nancy and Jonathan are doing well." Their respective older siblings, he means, who have been studying together in Dublin for the past year.

"Me too. Yeah, he calls me as often as he can."

Just when Will suspects Mike'll ask him about his sister next, the girl from the front of the store calls over, "Wheeler?" She eyes her watch with a crease of concern between her brows.

"Coming," he tosses over his shoulder. Then, almost exhaustedly to Will, "I'm _Wheeler_ here."

Well, the Ivy League affiliation definitely explains the girl's choices in fashion. Still, when Jesse comes back from the office, a couple rolls of quarters in tow, and begins depositing them not unnoisily into their compartment of the register, he fails in his attempt to be subtle in eyeing the pair of unlikely patrons, albeit offering his best customer service smile.

Mike bites down a sigh. "So, I'll see you around?"

"Yeah, sure," Will says automatically. "See you."

Mike smiles back, and it is the same as it always was, "Promise?"

Will can't help it. He smiles, too. Says, "Yeah," though as Mike turns around, regroups with the girl, and heads out the door, Will isn't sure how he'll ever find him again.

Or, more importantly, if it would even be in his best interest anymore.

"Who was that?" Jesse asks curiously.

"A kid I used to know," Will resolves.

If only it were that simple—the _see you around._ The whole rest of his day, his mind reels over it. Stumbles on a few homework equations over it, loses a few hours of sleep contemplating it, dozes off the next morning in English 101 fantasizing about it. Arranges and rearranges all the paintings and photos and prints on his dorm room wall trying to distract himself from it. Yet, still, the questions creep in. Should he take the subway to Mike's school? And if so, how would he ever find him out of all the faces at Columbia? Is he in the phone book by any chance? The rational realization that Mike knew where he worked doesn't even bother to cross his mind until after Will chains up his bike outside, waves hello to Jesse, and punches in for his Friday night shift at Liberation Records.

"That kid dropped by again today," Jesse drops casually, as if it doesn't make Will's heart lurch. He reaches for something under the counter. "Asked me to give this to you."

He produces a tape, one familiar enough to Will because, once upon a time, it had been his. Its worn label still displayed his old handwriting, its case battered after years of mailing and moving and general wear. Mike was giving it back.

Only, there was something smooth on the flipside. A pale yellow sticky note with a phone number scrawled so casually like an olive branch in handwriting Will knew almost as well as his own, and nothing more. No note, no name. Probably for the best.

He swallows down the swell in his throat.

"You gonna call?" Jesse asks.

There is a part of Will that wants to. Desperately. But, there is something else poking at the back of his mind that warns him otherwise. He has tried and tried and tried with Mike before, and nothing good ever comes of it. Not in the long run. Why would this time be any different?

"I dunno," Will says. "I think I should, but…"

"But…?" Jesse arches a brow.

Will shakes his head. Slides the tape back under the counter decisively. "It's been a while is all."

"What do you mean? You saw him yesterday," Jesse tries, but Will isn't in much of a mood for joking. "Let me guess. Once upon a time, things didn't go so well between you."

It is a statement rather than a question and it bumps Will off guard. "Did he say something?"

At that, Jesse laughs. "No. No, he didn't have to say anything. He just told me to give it to you, and he looked nervous. If it means anything—which from me, it doesn't really—I think you should call him, if only to tell him off and put him out of his misery. Best case scenario, he surprises you. People do change."

"Yeah," was all Will could say. His palms were starting to itch.

"Think about it. And if you want to talk about it, I'm here 'til four."

So he does. Think about it, that is. In fact, he cannot get his mind off the image of Mike digging up his old mixtape, or the fact that he brought it to New York in the first place, or the idea of him taking the subway all the way down from 116th if only to deliver the old, battered thing back to him.

For a Friday afternoon, it is quiet in the store. Even more so with he and Jesse not saying a word, considering Will's mind is loud and far elsewhere. Quiet until he decides aloud, "I'm gonna do it."

Jesse straightens, studies Will's expression closely. "Final decision?"

"I have to, right?" Mike came all this way. "I have to."

"Then go for it."

Will nods. "I'm going to."

But he doesn't reach for the phone right away. Jesse hands him the reviver, fishes the tape back out from under the counter. "Even if it's only to put him out of his misery. Right?"

Will dials the number. His heart is feral against his ribcage.

He drums his fingers against the counter and tries not to keep count of the ringbacks. What if he's not even there? What if—

From the other end, a click. Then, "Hello?"

"Mike. Hey. It's me," the words tumble out of Will.

"Hey." He almost sounds surprised. Almost. "You got the tape?"

"Yeah. I forgot you had it."

"Me too, honestly. I found it while packing to move out here."

"Oh." Will chews the inside of his lip, dares a glance over at Jesse. No help. His expression is impenetrable.

"Listen, there's this thing tomorrow night—maybe it sounds lame. A friend of mine, a friend's roommate, really, is doing a show. Nothing big or anything like that, but you should come. I think you'd like it."

His _friend._ One that isn't Lucas or Dustin. Will never considered seeing the day where he met people from Mike's new life. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. If you want."

Simple as that, and Will starts to cave. Because he _does_ want. He wants and wants so much and so often that maybe someday he'll get swallowed whole by all there is he lacks. He knows it, and surely Mike knows it, too.

"Bring whoever you want," he adds, and though he feels a pang of guilt for it, Will hopes against hope that by this Mike isn't wishing El might show up, too.

"Okay. Sure."

"Sure?" A smile grows in Mike's voice.

Will nods, only to remember Mike can't see him over the phone. "Sure."

"It's tomorrow night at seven," Mike says and rattles off directions. "When you come out of the station, it's right there. You can't miss it, I promise."

"Okay," says Will. "See you then."

"Okay," says Mike. "See you."

Will waits for the click of Mike hanging up first before releasing a long-held breath.

Jesse's mouth curves into a curious smirk. "Sounds like there's a plan."

"There's some show tomorrow night he wants me to go to." Will sets the receiver back into place. "And you're coming."

His eyebrows fly up his forehead. "Me? No. I'm closing tomorrow night."

Will flaps a useless hand. "Get Meg to switch with you."

And even though they are both sure Jesse hates closing and even surer Meg will want the additional hours, he still seems hesitant.

 _"Please?_ " Will huffs. "I'll buy you food."

Jesse releases a melodramatic sigh but succumbs to the change of plans. The next evening, Will meets him at Jesse's favorite place: a practical hole in the wall that sells the greasiest cheese and pepperoni pizza for only fifty cents a slice, which is a small price to pay for a place that probably is not up to health code and for Will to not have to show up to this thing alone.

Oil drips down onto Jesse's paper plate as he folds his first slice down the middle and shoves the better half of it in his mouth. "What kind of music did he say this is?"

Will racks his memory. "He didn't, actually. I didn't even know if it is music."

A crease forms between Jesse's brows. "What do you mean?"

"He just said a _show._ But that could be almost anything, right?"

"God, I hope it's a magician," he deadpans.

Will's nerves ease a little as they laugh about increasingly insane possibilities. No matter what, maybe something good can come from this after all, even if it's just a story to laugh about later.

Together, they head for the Upper West Side, where Fredrik's Cafe awaits their arrival. Nestled between a dry cleaner and a hair supply store, Will can't help but wonder how many people walk past without noticing. Or how Mike could ever possibly describe the place as _can't miss it._

From the door Jesse pulls open, the dark aroma of coffee beans wades out into the street, and Will feels much more awake just breathing it in. The hardwood floors soak up the scent, the deep red walls are plastered in posters. It is a crowded, cozy space; just a handful of tables and chairs, a service bar, and a small stage with an empty stool and waiting mic. The kind of place that comes off just grungy enough without actually being grungy at all to make the Ivy League undergrads feel as if their college experience is pushing them out of their comfort zones.

Mike stands from booth to the side when he sees Will and Jesse, summons them over, and slips into the other side next to a girl—scratch that, _the_ girl. The pale blonde who first came into the store the other day.

"This is my friend—" Mike begins to tell Will.

The girl beats him to it, extending her slim hand for Will to shake. "Bethany Harding."

"Will," says Will. "And this is Jesse."

"You guys are from the record store the other day."

Five. Will was five years old when he met Mike. They were friends for over a decade. At his mother's house, he still keeps a box of old letters and a sketchbook of every attempt to draw Mike's face from memory to prove it. But after everything, Will's only one of the guys from the record store.

"That's us," says Jesse, and nudges Will to sit. "So what's the show, exactly?"

"My roommate, Jaclyn, should be starting any second," says Bethany, as if it answers the question, and points in the direction of a table of nondescript girls, as if it gives an idea.

Fortunately, Mike realizes this impasse and jumps to help clarify. "She's a great writer."

"Good to hear," Jesse says with only enough sarcasm for Will to detect. "'Scuse me a minute."

Jesse slips away to order something from a tired-looking barista. Will tries helplessly to wipe his palms on his jeans but they continue to sweat. "So," he tries, "how'd you guys meet?"

Bethany scoffs amusedly, wraps her hands around a mug steaming with latte or cappuccino or something else equally foamy. "Creative writing with Professor Rosen."

Mike almost smirks, but not quite.

"You're in creative writing?"

The intent of the question was to be conversational, but it makes Mike's spine straighten. "I needed a higher-level English elective. I'm pre-med."

Will's brows rise impressively. "Dr. Wheeler, huh?"

"Something like that."

Bethany asks, "Where do you go to school?"

"NYU," says Will. He'll never grow tired of how easily it rolls off his tongue. "I'm studying studio arts."

At this, Mike smiles. Genuinely smiles. "No way. Will, that's amazing."

Inside, Will is beaming.

"Yeah," Bethany agrees. "I heard that's a tough school to get into."

Mike nods as if they weren't the ones who got into Columbia.

Will can only think to shrug, "I guess I'm lucky, then. They offered me a full scholarship—"

"Seriously?" interjects Mike, wide eyes boyish and astonished.

"Yeah. Turns out going missing in middle school makes for a killer college essay." Will meant it as a joke, but it came out wrong.

Bethany sits back in her seat, hand over her heart. "Wait, I'm lost. _What_ happened?"

Mike's lips purse and his eyes are anywhere but Will's general vicinity.

Will opens his mouth, but Jaclyn is welcoming the crowd as she adjusts her microphone.

"Hello, everyone." She says. "Thanks for coming out. And thanks, Fredrik, for inviting me to perform tonight. My name's Jaclyn Stirling, and I have a few poems to share with you all."

A few soft cheers of encouragement emerge from the audience.

She begins to read in a voice that is almost melodic. Mike sits and listens. _Really_ listens. Nodding along to the most impactful parts and, after a nudge from Bethany, snapping along when he's supposed to.

Jesse slides back into the booth, not only with a coffee for himself, but one for Will, too. Made exactly how he likes it. He smiles his thanks and Jesse nods his welcome. Maybe it'll keep him up until midnight, but maybe after seeing Mike he is bound to be anyway, so Will indulges himself in the simple pleasure of his warm cup, extra cream, extra sugar. He is even grateful for it if only to have something to do with his hands, and grateful for the way Jesse sits patiently through the performance without making a sound or pulling faces.

The whole reading only lasts about a half-hour, anyway, after which the coffee shop is buzzing and Jaclyn is beaming. Bethany makes Mike move so she can slide out and congratulate her friend or use the restroom or something else equally imperative.

"You done with that?" Jesse asks Will. "I'm gonna go outside for a minute."

So Will swallows down his last sip and Jessie collects their mugs.

"Thanks, by the way."

Jesse shrugs it off, smirks at his own impending wit. "It's the least I can do since science still hasn't figured out a way to IV drip caffeine directly into your bloodstream."

And with that, he brings the mugs to the barista and sneaks outside for a cigarette, leaving Will and Mike alone to their own devices for the first time in what feels like ever.

"I don't know how anyone drinks that stuff," says Mike.

"Coffee? I thought getting hooked on it was, like, a prerequisite for becoming a doctor."

This earned Will a chuckle from Mike. "Not for me I guess."

Will wasn't sure how to respond to that, so he simply didn't.

Mike clears his throat, takes interest in a chipping spot of varnish on the wooden table. Nothing inside of Will wants to hear what he can tell Mike's about to say. "Will, listen—"

"Don't," Will says, and it truly gets his attention. "Seriously. Don't worry about it."

"Okay," Mike relents, "but I am."

Sorry, he means and they both know it, for the ways things fell apart.

There was a time before everything, before they found out the hard way how bad the world truly gets, that Will thought they'd be friends forever. Whispering secrets between sleeping bags and watching seasons pass sat on the same front porch step until moments become memories and days become indistinguishable. But along came all the chances, the ones they took and the ones they didn't, and the way Will somehow knew they'd never stop coming. That he and Mike were destined to try again and again, seemingly to no avail. While he never quite expected it to come around again now of all times, in one of the biggest cities in the world of all places, here they are. Meeting again as if for the first time. Will doesn't know what yet, but that's got to be worth something.

"Yeah," Will admits, "me too."

And something behind Mike's inky eyes shines hopeful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, my loves! I hope you are all safe and well. So sorry for the few months of hiatus if your a follower of mine, but I am finally back and so happy to be writing again!
> 
> I thought I'd kick off pride month with the start of this Byler story, but with that and considering current events I would be amiss to go without mentioning that it was black LGBTQ+ members and the Stonewall riots that took place against police brutality that have gotten the queer community to the place we are at today. As someone who is bisexual, I owe them everything. As someone who is white, I will do anything within my means to support the black lives matter movement. I do not know what being racially prejudiced is like. I will never experience the injustices people of color do on a daily basis. What I do know is that we are not truly free until all of us are. Standing together, we are so much stronger. Protesters, please wear proper protective gear, take all precautions, and carry on peacefully. Allies, thank you for allowing space for BIPOC and LGBTQ+ voices to be heard! We can celebrate love and we can demand peace.
> 
> That being said, the constant stream of media can be overwhelming, especially for those of us still in quarantine with few other distractions, and I hope that this story can serve as a sort of escape for those of you in need of one. This Will x Mike story is one that has been bouncing around in my head for a while. I've never written anything where the relationship itself is the main plot so it's been fun to explore as a writer. It'll be told in alternating timelines, the first being "now" in late 1989, and the second being "then" which picks up right after season three and IGNORES the Hopper reveal that has happened since. So sorry! I'm just still salty about the way they handled the reveal. I hope we can still be friends! This is also going to be a shorter one compared to my other multi-chapter stories—I have it plotted to be 9 chapters give or take.
> 
> I hope you stick around and enjoy! If you have a moment, I'd love to hear what you think of this first chapter. xx


	2. THEN

_THEN  
_ _Woods Creek, West Virginia  
_ _October 1985_

If he lay in his bed, closed his eyes, and inhaled the smell of home through his sheets, Will could pretend he was still there in his old room, back in Indiana. He could pretend like if he nodded off that minute, sunlight would begin filtering through the shades before he even knew it. Jonathan would be up making scrambled eggs in the kitchen, and together they'd scarf them down with toast, hardly tasting a thing, and throw a hurried, "Bye, Mom!" over their shoulders before they headed off for the Wheelers.

Only, he wasn't in his old room. The windows here didn't have a draft and the floor by his closet didn't squeak under his weight. He opened his eyes to the silhouettes of unpacked boxes lining bare walls. The air was stale and didn't smell the same, never would, and the wall to wall carpet didn't feel like home under his feet. Even the soft knock at his door didn't carry the way it should.

She didn't wait for him to say anything before letting herself in. She clicked the door back in place behind her, and he scooched over in his bed.

When she crawled in beside him, pressed her shoulder against his, there was just enough room for the two of them. They closed their eyes, breathed in the scent of his sheets together.

That was the way it had been every night since the chief died. Since she had come to live with them.

Sometimes, in this way, they wouldn't say a thing, each dozing off eventually, and at some point he'd wake, chilly from the AC unit, and find she was hogging all the covers.

Sometimes, in this way, they'd talk on and on about nothing in particular—comic books or soap operas or what color Mom was planning to paint the kitchen.

Sometimes, in this way, they'd talk about everything, coming to find it was so much easier to speak from the heart when the lights were flicked out and every word was barely a whisper.

It was looking to be one of those first nights, the kind where they kept to themselves, but she hadn't fallen asleep yet, and neither had he.

She found her words eventually.

"Will?"

"El."

"He hasn't called."

"It's been a day."

"Max called."

"Give him time. It's a far hike to Cerebro."

She let out a small, frustrated sigh but, knowing he was right, folded her hand over his.

"If it makes you feel any better," he said, "our phone line gets connected tomorrow. We can call him then."

She gave his fingers a squeeze, and the plan was set. They called Mike the next day and, for a while, nearly every day thereafter. He and his sister came to visit for Thanksgiving, even, and it felt a lot like things might work out okay. But, as weeks turned into months and months dragged on, people got busy and distance got hard. Cerebro was no match against Mid-Western winters, and the telephone bill was no match for Jonathan's calls, carrying on late into the night with Nancy.

As the New Year came around, Mike took to writing letters instead. El took to checking the mailbox every day when she, Will, and Jonathan arrived home from school, even after they grew less and less frequent.

The letters Will received were never much more than sequences of well-intentioned life updates.

_Dustin got his braces off! He spent the whole day dragging us around so he could show off his "pearls" and eat as much caramel corn as he possibly could. Nauseating._

_Holly's into drawing now. You should see her. You could teach her a thing or two, next time your here._

_When's your spring break? My mom says maybe we can plan a visit then._

The ones El got were much different, Will was certain. They made her giggly. Made her lay in bed with her feet up on her headboard, made her eyes covet ever last word, made her store them safely in a shoebox under her bed.

Will always wondered what he said to her, wondered why Mike couldn't tell him the same bubbly things, but he never asked El if he could read one. It would feel wrong. It would feel like breaking his own heart.

So he took as many surface-level letters as he could get. Until one day, they weren't.

_My dad's being a total mouth breather lately, but what else is new? He keeps telling me to "man up" and "take some responsibility." Responsibility for what? It's not like he does anything all day. Such bullshit. Sorry to dump it all on you like that, but that's the way my life's been going lately. Besides, I'd feel bad complaining about my dad to El, and I know you understand. Is it better to have divorced parents than it is to have ones who stay together because they don't know what else to do? Sometimes I think it would be. I tried to ask Max but all she said was, "I guess," and it wasn't exactly convincing. After everything with Billy, I think maybe she wishes hers never split. Shit, this is awful. I might not even send this. But you understand. Right? It was so much easier when you were around and we could talk about this stuff in person. —Mike._

Will got out a pen and paper and began to write back immediately. He confessed to Mike some of the things his own father used to say to him and offered hand-me-down advice from Jonathan. It took him four tries to get all the words just right. When he was happy with it, he stuffed it in an envelope, included one of his most recent drawings of the mountains, and slipped it in the mailbox before he left for school the next day.

Mike's next letter arrived in record time. Will, once again, wrote back just as quickly.

And on like this they went, creating a space all of their own where they were safe to talk about the stuff no one else could ever know. Stuff Mom or El or Jonathan would never understand. When they spoke on the phone, they'd catch up on all the mundane topics—Nice Slice closed down and a new pizza joint opened up in its place on Main Street, but their sausage and pepperoni isn't half as good; Jonathan found some new music Mike might like and Will would send over a mixtape the first chance he got—but in the privacy of their letters, they got to bare what was truly weighing on their minds.

It gave Will hope that when summertime came around, when Lucas called and said the Sinclair family was taking a trip up to their lake house for a week in late June, and that he wanted the party—yes, the _whole_ party—to come. Hope and excitement that maybe things would be normal between him and his party now. Things would be exactly as they used to before. Before the monsters and the alternate dimensions and the heartache. Before everything went to shit.

Will and El shared a look, a grin. Of course they'd go. Of course. They wouldn't miss it for the world.

So while Will and El packed their things, Jonathan took this excuse, as he did any, to see Nancy and the three of them drove the five and a half hours back to Hawkins together for the first time in what felt like far too long. Jonathan turned the stereo up loud and El flipped through a book in the backseat and Will watched the road grow more and more familiar the closer they got. Something in Will's chest ached with anticipation, but in the best way possible, and for the first time in a long time all felt right in his world.

When they finally pulled up to the Sinclair's house, the whole party was waiting on the lawn to see them. Reunited, they were alight and elated. All of them, together as they should be, and all felt perfectly right.

Mike was the first to pull Will into a hug. "Hey, man. I missed you."

Will's heart soared. "Missed you, too." And he meant it more than he had the words to describe. He dropped his arms, but Mike held on half a second longer. Then, as soon as El was released from Max's smothering embrace, Mike gathered her up the same way.

"Is everyone ready to go?" Mrs. Sinclair asked their tiny, vibrant crowd.

They loaded themselves into the Sinclairs' cars and Will found himself smushed in next to El, who was squeezed beside Max in the backseat of Mrs. Sinclair's Volkswagen, Erica occupying the front passenger seat. For most of the ride, Erica and Max did the talking. As annoying as Lucas may have found his younger sister to be, she and Max seemed to get along well. Occasionally, Mrs. Sinclair would chime in, or Max would ask some questions about Will and El's new school, their new lives, but for the most part, El stayed shouldered up with Will as the car darted down the interstate toward the week to come, her hand over his as they both inhaled all the possibility that electrified the air.

The first night was everything Will had imagined it to be and more. The party set up their sleeping bags in the living room and marathoned the Star Wars films for the ten-thousandth time. Max braided El's hair, Dustin made Lucas inch over to give Erica a spot on the couch when she snuck in, and Mike and Will shared a bowl of extra buttery popcorn. They argued over which was best—the Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi—and feigned annoyance at Erica's input, though she made some new and valid points, and Will's universe aligned exactly the way it should.

It wasn't until the next morning that any cracks in their marble began to show.

As they ambled their way down to the lake after breakfast, Mike and Dustin and Lucas and Max were all cracking inside jokes, mostly ones El and Will had missed. Breathlessly, they tried to catch the two up on all of the origin stories, but either Will was missing something or he just simply had to have been there. So he did what was expected of him; he stretched on a smile and watched as El did the same, and they busied themselves helping set down their things in the sand.

By the time Max got the chance to offer to teach El to swim, Dustin and Lucas and Mike were already halfway to the water.

"Maybe in a little while," said El.

Max nodded, masked her face well of any disappointment. "Sure. Let me know."

With that, she was off too.

Will hung back, sat in the sand beside El. Her lips spread into a smile, genuine this time, and she fished his sketchbook and colored pencils from her bag, evidently hoping before they even left the lakehouse that he'd stay by her side. As El kicked back with her book, Will began to sketch. He let outlines flow loosely, the silhouette of kids splashing around in the water taking shape, the details of his party eventually settling in.

They probably could've gone on for an eternity this way if it weren't for the shadows that grew long over their pages. When Will looked up, Max and Mike towered over them, breathless and glistening in the midday sun.

Mike frowned at the cover of El's book— _The Life and Death of Virginia Woolfe;_ she was nearly finished. "Why are you reading that?"

Perhaps ignoring the question, perhaps supplying her own sort of answer, she said, "Listen to this. The last words Woolfe ever wrote: _I don't think two people could have been happier than we have been."_

Max blinked. "And?"

"And that's it. She drowned herself, but she wanted to be remembered as _happy._ Don't you think that says a lot?"

Once, El had shown Will the words Hopper had written for her just days before he died, but he couldn't bring himself to read the whole thing. They weren't for him. All he knew was that she had been obsessed with that sort of thing ever since—goodbye notes and final words and epitaphs. She told Will she thought the very last things a person leaves in the world says a lot about the life they lived.

Mom thought it was all horribly morbid. Jonathan thought it was necessary for El to grieve in whatever way she needed to.

Will knew the only thing he could do was assure her he understood. "Of course it does."

He could tell in the way she looked at him then that she wanted nothing more than to reach out and squeeze his hand, confirm they are on the exact same page, but something within her hesitated.

Max's brow creased with concern. She obviously didn't get any of it. "That sounds like a bummer, El. C'mon, let's go have fun." She extended a helping arm toward El. "It's _summer_ and we haven't seen you in forever."

Mike reached out to Will the same way and a few droplets of lake water dripped from his skin over the beginnings of the drawing. He wasn't quite sure why it bothered him so much, but looking at it made Will's throat crawl, and he hated himself for it. Really, it wasn't a big deal. Only a blemished blemish. A stained stain. A moment captured then changed.

Will was good at pretending. Always had been. He said it was nothing when Mike offered a lackluster apology, got up and headed for the water, splashed around sunburnt and laughed at jokes he would never quite get, the realization rooting that it did not matter how often he called, what he wrote in his letters. They could try and keep in touch as much as they liked, but it could never be the same if Mike was speaking to Will in a language he no longer knew, unpracticed and therefore unremembered. He didn't know the party anymore, not truly. Not like he used to. And the party, in turn, no longer seemed to know him. Not in the ways that mattered.

Gauging the look behind her wide eyes, El must have realized the same.

She was quiet the rest of the day, much more so than usual. She went through the motions alongside Will, stuck to the shallowest edges of the lake, toweled off with the rest of them, always managing to tuck herself out of the way. She sat on the kitchen counter while they made watermelon popsicles, sat on the steps as the party longed lazily around the porch, sat on the floor in front of the couch to let Max re-braid her hair in the middle of another nighttime movie marathon.

"Done," Max told her, looping the elastic one last time to secure the style in place.

"Looks pretty?" she asked, reached back to feel with her fingers, and looked to Will instinctively.

He nodded. "Yeah. Always."

 _"_ _Ooo-ooh,"_ Dustin teased, singsong. "Hear that? They've gotten cozy _and_ he thinks she's pretty.

 _"_ _Gross,_ Dustin," Will's face scrunched, nose wrinkled. "She's my sister."

 _"_ _Sister?"_ Max scoffed, barely under her breath, then thought better before saying anything more.

A silence settled over the room, the movie sounding miles away. As much as Will and El had missed, the rest of the party was in the dark, too. They weren't there every night at the Byers' dinner table, or every morning in homeroom, or every time someone would inevitably ask if they were fraternal twins, a question which incited the first of their very own inside jokes apart. _"Yes,"_ Will began saying after what felt like the millionth time, _"we are."_

And after the fact, as he and El walked away and she nudged his elbow with her own. _"Does this mean we both get two birthdays?"_

El was one of the Byers, an integral part of their family, regardless of how recent her addition may have been. There were no two was about it.

Mike pulled himself from the couch and slipped silently out of the room.

"Yeah. His sister," confirmed El with a smirk for Will, one that didn't care if they were the only two who knew better.

"Sorry," said Dustin. "I guess I forgot."

"It's okay," said El. "It's not like we've been around."

Will stood and stepped over El's legs. "Want anything from the kitchen?"

The party shook their heads.

In the other room, Mike stood leaning against the counter, a glass of water cupped in his hand. He had his head angled over it, watching an ice cube float on top.

Will sided up, leaned alongside him. "You okay?"

Mike nodded and said nothing. Will allowed his silence to slip past, but only for a moment. "Is it about El?"

Mike sighed. "If I say yes, does that make me sound stupid?"

For the sake of saving not only Will's life but the fate of the world, his friends had gone on a wild adventure like that of a sci-fi film, enlisting the help of some mysterious, magical girl. Nothing had ever been the same since. How could it? Selfishly, though, Will often wondered how different life would have played out for him had be been with his party the whole time. For better or for worse, Mike certainly stopped and considered every what-if, too. "Not to me."

Mike peeked up at Will, his dark eyes raw with worry. "What are the kids at your new school like?" he asked instead of what he most likely meant: _Do the kids at your new school like her?_

"They think we're weird," Will admitted. "Like really, really weird. And not just me and El. Jonathan, too."

Mike considered this. "But some people like weird."

"Yeah," said Will. _"You."_

It earned him a chuckle at the very least. "The hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means you found a girl in the forest when you were twelve and you've been in love with her ever since."

"Shit," Mike soberly admits, and the melancholy washes back over him. "I dunno. Saying anything about it to her doesn't feel like a good idea anymore. It all feels so much more complicated now."

"Well, was it ever not?"

"Maybe," Mike sighs, gives a stiff shrug. "When you were still around. You make everything make sense."

 _"_ _Me?"_ This was news to Will. Warmth spread through his cheeks.

"Yeah," he laughs. "Dustin blows everything way out of proportion and Lucas takes everything too seriously. Then Max is, you know… _Max._ But then there's you. I guess you see things for how they really are."

"Not always." Sometimes Will had a bad habit of letting his heart get in the way of his head.

"Please," Mike insisted, "just trust me on this one."

Will nodded and they left it at that. Stood together in silence another minute, and it felt strange to have his best friend back by his side in such a simple way. After a minute or two, they rejoined the group.

Later that night, they had a campfire, which was Max's idea, but the s'mores were Lucas'. Circled around the orange glow of the flame, they played truth or dare and made new memories Will hoped would not hurt as much to look back on later. Yet, the thing he remembered most clearly about that blazing summer night was the gifts. Or the start of them, at least.

They were nothing really—junk, in hindsight—but from the lake house even the stars seemed tiny and even the smallest of Mike's gestures somehow felt monumental.

The first was a chocolate bar Mike snagged from the s'mores supplies, broke in half, and split with Will.

The next day at the lake, Mike dropped a tumbled beach rock in the side pocket of Will's backpack seemingly for no reason other than it was lavender, and he knew purple was Will's favorite.

A few days later while sitting on the porch, before Will even thought to complain about his dulling colored pencils, Mike said, "Here," and placed a tiny plastic sharpener into his palm.

As a thank you, Will took his time drawing a detailed portrait of was decidedly his favorite tree on the property—a sycamore; very lush, very stoic, very climbable—and tucked it away in Mike's pillowcase.

It felt as if they were speaking a new language all of their own, making up words they did not know as they went along. It felt different from the friendship they'd had before, but in a way that felt better and brand new.

On their last day, the neighbors let the party borrow their rowboat. They all climbed in, Lucas pushing the boat off the sand before hopping in the back, and paddled out to the middle fo the lake, where they took turns jumping from the bow.

"How deep is it?" Will asked, giving Max a hand as she pulled herself up and out of the water.

She shrugged, looked to Lucas.

"Dunno," he said. "Pretty deep, I think."

Pretty deep was right. Looking overboard, the bottom wasn't anywhere in sight. Just navy water, the sun glittering only over the surface and leaving the rest of the way down dark and uncertain.

"Don't worry about it. It's fun," Max said.

Knowing Max as well as he did, Will could rest assured her idea of _fun_ was much different from his.

He looked to El. "Want to go with me?"

It was a hopeful question. He knew she'd shake her head, draw her knees closer to her chest. She hated the water. Lakes and bathtubs and everything in between. Tried to avoid it, if she could. Barely knew how to swim, even.

"I will," Mike offered, and before Will knew it, he was standing at the tapered front of the rowboat, squeezed in next to Mike, with Mike's fingers, suddenly on his shoulder tapping out Morse code:

 _-.- - ..- / ..-. .. .-. ... -  
_ _YOU FIRST_

If this was a new dialect of their language, Will wanted all in. He nodded, stepped up and off the edge of the bow just seconds before Mike followed.

This far out, the water hit cooler than expected, sent a soothing shock through Will's system. He felt weightless and electric kicking back up toward the gleaming surface.

He slicked his soaked hair back from his face and watched as Mike came back up about a yard away and laughing. Smiling, too, as he swam around to the side of the boat, Will looked over the water toward the horizon. The world seemed infinite, like it could be his if he wanted it. If he just reached out and took hold of it.

But the week had just started to get this good, and it was already over. Early that afternoon, after eating sandwiches Mr. Sinclair had prepared and finishing off the last of the lemonade in the fridge, everyone packed up their things, loaded them into the cars, and headed back to Hawkins.

It was there, in the Maple Street cul-de-sac, that the party said their goodbyes all over again.

Will and El thanked the Sinclairs and kept their hugs short and solemn.

Mike squeezed an arm around Will's shoulders. "Call me when you get home?"

"Sure," said Will. And after everything that happened and everything that didn't that week, they left it as simple as that.

Jonathan asked Will where the bags were. He had work the next day and it was already verging on late for the long drive ahead so he was getting antsy. Will lead him around to the trunk of Mr. Sinclair's car, all the while not being able to help but keep an eye on Mike and El's goodbye.

They let their hug linger a few moments, then a few more. Then, as she pulled away, he kissed her cheek. So quickly, so fleetingly, Will might have missed it if he'd blinked, but he hadn't been so lucky.

He wished it hadn't stung, but it did. He wished he never saw it, could make Mike take it back, but he had and he couldn't.

He didn't even know why it had hurt so bad, or really at all. He swore even El looked taken aback by it. Yet, he felt so damn _stupid._ Like he'd convinced himself that this time things would be different, and for nothing. That his party could be back and better than it ever was before, but he was so, so wrong. He'd been living in a reality that never truly existed.

There must have been a mistranslation somewhere along the line, and Will was foolish to think their new methods of communication meant anything more.

By the time he and his siblings had buckled into Jonathan's car, Will was grateful to get away from it. Grateful that Jonathan knew to play all Will's new favorite songs and to take the long way back to the interstate, a route which added an extra twenty minutes to what was already nearing a six-hour drive, if only for the sake of not having to pass their old street, see new cars parked in their old driveway.

He didn't call Mike when they got back. It was late, and all Will wanted was to be in his bed, curled up in his sheets.

When El crawled in with him, pressed her shoulder against his, all she said was, "I don't want anything to ever come between us."

"Neither do I," Will agreed.

She squeezed his hand and said nothing more.

Maybe in some alternate dimension, Will's life worked out differently. But what would it do to dwell on it? For better or for worse, this is the hand he had been dealt: summers that swell and burn and end, people that change, and the head-spinning way things never stay the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, guys! I hope you enjoyed this new addition. In the past, I've really enjoyed sharing some of the songs that helped inspire specific elements of my stories and I thought I'd continue that with this one. Here is my playlist for this chapter for those of you interested! Feel free to ignore otherwise and I won't ever know the difference. xx
> 
> \- Pale Beneath the Tan by The Front Bottoms  
> \- What You Know by Two Door Cinema Club  
> \- Don't Let Me Down by The Beatles  
> \- Don't Think Twice, It's Alright by Bob Dylan  
> \- Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want by The Smiths


	3. NOW

_NOW_  
 _New York City, New York  
_ _November 1989_

The woman on the movie screen shares a striking resemblance with Will's ex, if Will's ex were the type to paint her lips dark and keep her hands tucked inside dainty lace gloves. Of course, it couldn't actually be her, as this particular film was made in the early 1940s and this actress' particular character carries a tiny pistol in her pocketbook—it's one of the things Will has come to appreciate about some of these old movies. How the women, sly and cunning behind their silver smiles, are really the masterminds behind whole operations. And the men they make fools of, the ones who genuinely believe it is themselves leading the charge, never expect it. Not once. Not until the very end when the women pull out those tiny pocketbook pistols and turn the tables. Even then, the men don't really believe they will shoot, but the women are never as weak as everyone else wishes.

The film mistakes even Will this time, with the actress seeming so familiar to him. Val never believed in guns. She had always been a pacifist, and he had always appreciated that about her. It makes him jump when the actress finally fires.

"Oh, shit," Mike murmurs next to him. The twist got him too, regardless of how skeptical he had been of the old fashioned theater when they first got there.

And Will can't blame him for it. Even he had been uncertain when he was first introduced, but all it took was one film, one bucket of their popcorn with real melted butter, one half of a double feature on the crushed velvet seats and he was hooked. Something about the predictability of the Carnelian, the way it always seems as if he is sitting within a time capsule, keeps Will coming back. He, knowing Mike loves movies just as much, if not more, couldn't help but suggest it when Mike called asking if maybe they could hang out again sometime soon.

By the time the credits roll, Will knows the Carnelian has won him over.

"How'd you find this place?" Mike asks as they shuffle out into the blazing autumn afternoon. He squints up to the marquee through the sun.

"My room advisor is a film major," says Will. "Lives for this kind of thing. Told me I had to check it out. Pretty cool, right?"

As they begin to stray aimlessly, side by side down the city block, Mike cracks a smile at his own joke before he can even get it out. "You think they'll be playing _Aliens_ or something here someday?"

_"Aliens?"_

"Yeah. Did you ever see it?"

"No. Never," says Will, not sure how Mike could ever stand it. Just seeing the special effects in the trailer had freaked him out. Resurfaced too many bad memories he'd much rather forget. He didn't want to even wonder what the full movie must entail.

"Well, I don't mean _Aliens,_ specifically," Mike backtracks. "Just any movie we'd think of as modern. My writing teacher has this saying: _'All art has been contemporary.'_ You ever hear that? We think of movies like that as old-fashioned, but when it was made, it was just another movie. Like _Aliens_ is now."

"Do you like your writing class?" Mike had always been great at it, not only in their letter-writing phase, but back in his dungeon master days, too. Always knew how to tell a story in a way that kept the party clinging to every last word.

Mike considers this through narrowed eyes. "Better than bio. Or physiology."

At that, Will chuckles. "So better than what you're actually majoring in, essentially?"

"Do you want food?" Mike shifts the subject, squints at a street sign on the corner. "I think I know a place near here."

Before Will can answer, Mike is leading the way, winding around the concrete blocks that make up Midtown Manhattan until he finds the spot he's looking for not too far.

The twenty-four-hour diner Will is greeted by is exactly like every other in New York City—a narrow storefront with a stretch of breakfast bar parallel to a row of violet vinyl booths, all alight under neon signage and florescent fixtures—but as Mike pushes open the door with a _ding,_ he swears to Will it's the best.

In the minute it takes the waitress to come from behind the counter, seat them in a booth, and offer them coffee from the pot she carries, Will finishes running through shades of oil paint in his mind, wondering which ones he'd have to mix to match her exact shade of strawberry blonde.

"Yes, please," says Will to the coffee, and then as Mike is about to decline for himself, "Try it. Trust me, it's amazing."

"You really are addicted, aren't you?" Mike cracks.

The waitress laughs lightly, fills Mike's mug too, and leaves them for a few minutes with the menu.

When she's out of earshot, Mike leans forward and says, "I've tried it before and it's kind of awful."

"How'd you take it?" asks Will, already assuming the answer and already at work with the table's small cups of cream and paper packets of sugar. He dumps extra of each in both coffees.

"Black…" The way Mike says it leaves a question mark curling up in the air alongside the steam.

"Exactly," says Will, stirring with his spoon. "Try this. If you don't like it, I'll have it."

He pushes Mike's mug back toward him and watches as he takes a tentative sip, sits with the flavor for a second.

"How is it?"

"Really hot," Mike says and smirks. "But not bad."

In Will's book, that's a win. Even more so when Mike takes a second sip, then a third, never offering Will the rest. As payback or thanks, Will isn't sure, Mike orders the all-day breakfast special for the both of them and the waitress collects their untouched menus.

"Did you really get a full scholarship?" asks Mike suddenly.

Will's brow furrows. "Did you think I was lying?"

"Not _lying…"_ Mike's brow knits as he tries to cull his words carefully. "I just didn't know NYU did that kind of thing. I know it's pretty expensive."

"My parents had a funeral for me," says Will, though if there was anyone that didn't need a reminder, it was Mike. After all, he had been the one who attended it. Not Will. "That's a grade-A sob story. And the scholarship is only for tuition. Doesn't cover room and board or books or anything, which is why I have my job, but it helps. It helps a lot.

"Do you like it there?"

"NYU or Liberation?"

Mike shrugs. "Both."

"Sure," said Will. He loves his job plenty. Had really lucked out in that department, in fact, but sometimes homework and art projects pile up while he's at the record shop and prioritizing his time between work and school can become overwhelming. And attending NYU is a dream come true, but dreams are never as rosy in reality. "I just miss my family a lot, is all."

Mike nods like he understands and doesn't ask about El. Maybe he doesn't need to. Maybe he already knows, which seems likely enough. Why wouldn't Nancy pass on the word? And even before that, why wouldn't Max tell him of their grand plans herself?

Of course he doesn't ask. And of course, days later, he once again doesn't mention her name when he sees old pictures and drawings of her taped among a million others on the walls of Will's dorm room. His roommate, Kevin, already left for class and all Will needs is to grab a heavier jacket before they leave for the harvest festival in Central Park, but Mike stands in awe of all Will's art.

"These are incredible."

"Thanks," he says, shrugging his coat on.

"Seriously. It's like a museum in here. Have you seen the Met yet?"

Will shakes his head.

 _"Really?_ You'd love it. Did you do this one, too?"

 _This one_ was unlike the others in the way that it was a landscape. Will didn't do many landscapes these days. Never quite fell in love with watercolor painting, either, but nevertheless admired the way the sheer pigments layered and blended and bled. The way the white of the paper poked through the mountaintops, making snow of negative space. The way the water of the painting's valley seemed to actually shimmer. "No," said Will. "A friend gave that one to me."

"It's good," Mike says decidedly before moving on to the next. "You're really good at drawing people."

"Thanks." It was all Will ever wanted to practice anymore; perfecting the exact curve of someone's smile, or dip of their collarbone, or the way their eyes catch the light.

"You think you can draw me like that?" he says, and Will can't decide if he's joking, about a charcoal illustration of Jonathan, dark and smudgy, like a reflection in a rainy window.

What Mike doesn't know is that Will has already tried a thousand times, most of which came before his art class tools and NYU techniques and he could never seem to get Mike right from memory or his few worn-out photographs, but there has always been something about the shape of Mike's eyes, the splatter of freckles across his nose, the stark contrast in value between his hair and skin that kept Will itching to try again and again.

So he gets out his sketchpad and some of his charcoals and moves his desk chair to sit Mike by the window and begins to draw. All the while, Mike watches. Will wishes he wouldn't. Wishes every time he looks up for reference he isn't met with Mike's eyes, attentive and curious as ever. And at the same time, he isn't sure he wants Mike to look away.

He does his best to focus his thoughts on the drawing instead. The loose outlines of Mikes's features flow out of Will and onto the page like muscle memory. They smudge under his fingers with ease. The line of his brow, the curve of his cheekbone coming together beneath his hands.

"Do they let you draw what you want in school?" Mike asks after a stretch of silence, unnoticed to Will until it is broken.

"Sort of," Will nods, holds up his sketch to look at the lines form a different angle, decides it's the way he's shaped Mike's jawline that is throwing things ever-so-slightly off. "In high school, they kind of told us what to do. Like, my freshman year was the first time I ever worked with real drawing pencils and my teacher had us draw a life-sized shoe, photorealistic, for one of our first projects. Now, though, my professor just teaches technique and has us apply it to whatever want. Which is cool to see what everyone else does with it. Your writing class is probably the same, right?"

"Yeah, that's exactly it."

Will hesitates a moment before admitting, "I'm surprised you're pre-med."

"I like learning about since," Mike says, his answer produced a bit too quickly. After all this time, Will still knows him too well. Or at least enough to know when a line has been rehearsed.

"Just because El likes reading about death doesn't mean she should become a mortician."

Mike says nothing. Will feels his bravado quickly slipping away.

"Sorry. It just doesn't."

"It's okay."

A moment passes in the simple silence of charcoal against paper before Will ventures, "Was it your dad's idea? Becoming a doctor."

"He wants me to be successful."

Will can't help but chuckle dryly. "And doctors are all successful?"

"Sure," says Mike. "Everybody knows that."

Will shrugs. "Depends on your idea of success, I guess."

Mike sits with this. Asks, "What's yours?"

"Happiness, I think."

Once, Will's father scoffed about Will's art. Had made fun of the idea of NYU the same way he made fun of whoever shot the least number of turkeys on a hunting trip. But Will doesn't draw to appease his father. Lonnie's happiness could never be worth more than Will's own. And maybe for the same reasons Lonnie lives for baseball games and six-cylinder engines, Will draws because that is what his hands were made to do. Because when he holds a brush or pencil and feels the press of a page beneath his fingertips, some unidentifiable thing buried inside him takes over. Something that is never more certain of himself. He could never give up for anything, or anyone. Not even if he tried.

It would be a struggle, he knew. Artists aren't exactly known for making very much. Not until they're dead. But since when had anything in life come easily to Will Byers?

"I dunno," he sighs after Mike has nothing to say for it. "Maybe that's stupid."

"It's not stupid."

Something in Mike's voice makes Will's fingers pause over the page for a second. A sincere understanding, maybe. It makes him feel like even though they still have a long way to go to get back to something like they had before, this feels like a place to meet. A solid foundation to restart. Like maybe this could be the time things between them work out for the best, whatever that means for them now.

Though Will keeps this to himself.

As much as he wants to pour over every aching detail of their time together to Jesse, he doesn't. As much as he wants to call up El and tell her everything about their past few fleeting weeks, he can't.

And maybe it is nothing more than the magic of the city, but Will can't deny that this time feels different than all the others before. That Mike's words hold more weight and every look has more meaning and they have silently agreed to stop making promises they know they can never keep.

No, he cannot tell anyone. Speaking it would make it real, and Will had learned the hard way that some things are far to fragile to be brought to light.

Thanksgiving break seizes them each greedily, and Will finds himself at Central Station in Mike's arms, a hug goodbye before they part again, trains scheduled to take them in two different directions, if only for the week. When Mike squeezes on a moment long, Will swears this time it isn't his mind playing tricks on him. And as much as he wishes otherwise, Will has his whole journey home to obsess over it, to try and strip some sort of sense or meaning out of it.

The walls of his West Virginian home do little in the way of relief for this, but to find his sister there waiting, smiling, on the top porch step is enough to make him forget for a moment. She runs to him, gathers him tight. She smells of warmth. Of wicker and cinnamon. Her flight had gotten in yesterday, she says beaming, though she felt like she had been waiting on Will forever.

The week progresses and the holiday creeps up quietly without Jonathan's jokes or the city's ambient sounds. Mom keeps the Macy's parade on the television, and that is close enough, and keeps El and Will busy in their cramped kitchen—with its yellow drapes, cherrywood cabinets, and assortment of kitschy mugs—dicing celery for the stuffing and slicing apples for the pie and asking questions about California and New York, respectively.

El reports her gap year is going well. That her waitressing job isn't the greatest, but that she and Max are well on their way to saving up for the RV they plan to take cross country in the spring. Suggests for the millionth time that Will should join them in the summer.

Mom is proud, and Will is, too. Better than anyone, El deserved all the happiness she could soak up from the world.

Mom assigns them to potato peeling next before running out to the store for some forgotten cranberry sauce.

Having this time with Will alone, El ventures to ask, "Have you seen Val yet?"

"No," says Will, potato skins curling into a bowl. "I'm not sure I will."

"Why not?" she asks in that way of hers that isn't intent on being invasive, just curious.

Will shrugs. "I just don't think it's a good idea."

El is silent long enough for Will to assume she's retired the subject, but of course she hasn't. When Will looks back up, El is studying him with a knowing smirk. "You met someone," she says, and it isn't a question.

"No, I didn't," says Will, and he can't help but crack a smile because it isn't exactly a lie.

"Did too, Will Byers! Is it your friend from work? Jesse, right?"

 _"Jesse?"_ his eyebrows fly up his forehead. "No—"

"Is he gay?" she asks, conspiratory. "Do you know?"

"How should I know? Probably not." It's a topic Will tries to avoid, and regardless isn't exactly the kind of thing that comes up in everyday conversations about vinyl. Besides, it didn't exactly matter what Jesse was or wasn't.

El shrugs. "You should find out."

"I can't just ask people if they're gay, El."

At that, she frowns. "Then how do you meet people?"

Will comes up with a chuckle. "I don't."

"But there's someone?"

He's treading dangerous water. He tries, hesitantly, "It's not like that."

"But there's _someone?_ Someone you like, who may or may not be Jesse." She's grinning like she's already won something.

He pleads her name, an exasperated sigh.

"Okay, okay, not Jesse. Then who? You know I won't tell anyone."

"You tell Max everything," Will counters.

To punctuate his point, El rolls her eyes, a gesture she undoubtedly picked up from the best friend in question. "This isn't about Max. And I don't tell her everything; I tell _you_ everything. We promised we'd never let anything come between us, and that means no secrets. Remember?"

"And nothing will," he promises, "because nothing is ever going to happen. Trust me. So can we both drop it? Please?"

She holds her hands, potato peeler and all, in surrender. "Okay. I just want you to be happy, and I think you should find out before you give up. And I think you should see Val while you're here."

"I _am_ happy," is all Will says, and he realizes he believes it.

And he realizes, too, that El is right, he _should_ see Val, but that truth is a bit harder to admit.

Nevertheless, he manages to find her that Saturday outside the drugstore in town, sipping Pepsis with a couple other seniors. She smiles despite herself when she sees him, and she looks nothing like the actress in that old film; she just looks like Val. Like she always has, with her hair tied up and a couple new piercings on her ears.

She beckons him over. Calls, "Hey there, College," soon as he's in earshot. He'd almost forgotten the sound of her voice, slightly southern and sugarcane sweet in spite of her best efforts to rid herself of both. "Was starting to think I'd never see you again around here."

Will shoves his hands deep inside his pockets. "Could you blame me?"

She shakes her head. "Not even a little."

She excuses herself from her friends and leads the way on a walk down to the bed of the creek, the town's namesake which runs parallel to Main Street, weaving in and out of thick woodland clusters. They amble down until they find their bolder, and the autumn chill of it seeps through Will's jeans as they sit.

"You never called," Val comes out and says. "You've probably been pretty busy, though."

He had told her he would, and they both knew it. "Yeah, I'm really sorry—"

"I already forgive you," she nudges his elbow with her own, "as long as you have a drawing for me."

"I'll mail you one," Will promises.

"Likewise." She picks up a fallen branch and from her spot perched beside him, uses it to draw a straight line in the earth before them. "Did you make any friends?"

"Yeah, a few," says Will, takes the branch as it's handed to him and draws a line to create a wide-angle with Val's. "I ran into Mike, actually. We hung out a couple times."

Like water between his fingers, the words flow out without permission. It takes him a second to realize he has even said it, to who he has said it to.

Val draws a curved line that connects the two like a fat pie slice. "Yeah?"

"Turns out he goes to Columbia."

She sighs, passes back the stick. "Well, damn. Small world."

"A little too small," Will agrees, and it earns him a shadow of a smile. He draws a line through the pie.

"Are you _trying_ to sabotage this?" She laughs, jerks the stick back, considers her next line carefully. "Are you happy he's there?"

It's the kind of question that takes him aback. Will answers as honestly as he knows how. "For now."

She nods, understanding. "Just be careful."

He, of course, knows this. He's been trying to keep it in mind all along, but it's so easy to keep forgetting.

Unsatisfied with their game, Val strikes perpendicular through Will's line, as if to cross out their pie, then clears the dirt with the toe of her boot. "That was a practice round," she says, but drops the stick to the ground, wraps her arms around Will's middle, rests her head on his shoulder.

They sit like that for a while. Maybe minutes, maybe hours pass in the breeze as he traces patterns over her knee, watches the creek bubble past, and wonders how this scene might look if Val were to paint it.

"It's a tricky life for you, Will," she murmurs after an eternity. "I wish it didn't have to be, but it is."

This, he knows, too. This, he is learning to adapt to. "I think I'll be okay."

"Yeah?" He can feel her smile against his shoulder and hear the wistfulness of it in her voice. "I think we both will."

And she says it like she believes it, and that, in turn, is enough to make Will believe it. Because what they both know, too, what Will sighs certain of now, is that no one else he would ever meet could love him as much as Val once did.

Maybe he deserves that. Maybe, after all, love stories _were_ made for boys like Will Byers; maybe they just never were meant for silver screens, because maybe they only ever end like this.

It's the kind of thought that sticks with him. Rolls around Will's mind long enough to make him regret ever conceiving it in the first place.

Back at NYU, he finds a letter waiting in his mailbox, return address handwritten from Hawkins, just like the old days. Will leaves it in his top desk drawer, unopened, as if it'll help keep his mind clear. As if it'll put a definitive stop on what seems so inevitable now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: Hello, hello! I'd hoped to get this chapter up so much sooner, but I recently moved house and that process took up every moment of my spare time. Thank you for your patience; I'd love to hear what you think of this chapter!
> 
> Chapter 3 Playlist:  
> -Thinkin Bout You by Frank Ocean  
> -Upper West Side by King Princess  
> -The Boy With The Thorn In His Side by The Smiths  
> -Someday You Will Be Loved by Death Cab for Cutie

**Author's Note:**

> DISCLAIMERS: I am in no way affiliated with Netflix or Stranger Things. I do not have a beta or proofreader so please excuse any mistakes I may have missed as they are all my own! While I may ship the characters, I by no means condone the shipment of the actors who play them. This is a safe space; constructive criticism will always be wanted and welcome, however I reserve the right to delete and/or block any homophobic, biphobic, or similarly destructive comments.


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